


A Whole Lot Of Yesterday

by TheLibranIniquity



Series: The Anatomy Of Grief [6]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:47:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLibranIniquity/pseuds/TheLibranIniquity
Summary: Ethan tries to crash a wedding, the whole team is finally reunited and Lester is just this close to done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 6 in a (very) ongoing series that only seems to be updated every time there's a fic finishing push on Denial. (My bad.) I've tried to include a few recaps that hopefully aren't too info-dumpy. There is still a plan through to a conclusion/epilogue that I do intend to reach one day :)

“It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.”  
– John Guare

Lester arrives at the ARC in what he thinks is an unobtrusive manner but the effect is ruined when he realises several cars are missing from the car park. It follows through to the ARC itself; even for this early in the afternoon there are noticeably fewer people, and Becker's ex-military lot are virtually non-existent.

“Er, Jess,” he says as he reaches the main atrium, “what's going on?”

She jumps when she hears him, twisting around to look over her shoulder. She squints at him. “Everyone's been looking for you.” She doesn't sound at all accusatory despite the words.

“Scenic route.” Lester realises every one of her monitors is on and running different information and video feeds. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Jess turns back and starts attacking one of her keyboards. “Double anomaly alert, possible human incursion at one. Did you know Danny Quinn and Jenny Lewis are supposed to be getting married today?”

Lester blinks. He wants to protest about that final piece of information but his professional side wins out – barely. “Two anomalies?”

“Yes.” Jess subtly leans to one side to let him step closer. “Becker, Matt, Abby and Connor are at one, Stephen and Emily at the other.”

There's a quip about appropriate hiring policies on the tip of Lester's tongue but he dismisses it.

Jess' fingers keep typing while she glances between monitors. “Matt's possibly been taken hostage. We're still trying to confirm that,” she adds quickly when Lester stares at her. “But in the meantime the black boxes and comms are offline. Per Matt's last request.”

Lester's hand slips into his trouser pocket, feels for the mobile he'd instructed Professor Erskine to contact him via once she had any information about the human remains from Cutter's old university. It was unlikely to go off for a while yet. 

“What can I do to help?” he murmurs to Jess.

o o o o o

The anomaly flickers in front of Matt. Even in its locked down state the light casts odd shadows over the windowless walls and exposed pipes.

For all the months he's been attached to the anomaly project it's still... odd, seeing anomalies surrounded by intact things; things in general. His earliest memories of them had been in wastelands, surrounded by nothing but death and predators; dangerous to reach, even more dangerous be near, let alone travel through.

Something clunks behind him. Against his better judgement Matt turns around.

Ethan pulls the unconscious Sergeant Brooks' legs into an awkward position across Lance Corporal Kelly's torso. Matt's EMD hangs loosely from his right shoulder; the only thing preventing Matt from taking any direct action against his captor is the very lethal revolver attached to Ethan's left hip. It's at odds with the ill-fitted tuxedo.

Apparently satisfied with his handiwork Ethan turns to face Matt. “How do you undo that?” he asks, pointing at the sealed anomaly behind Matt.

“I don't know.” It isn't quite a lie. The technology was rudimentary and Matt had been walked through the lockdown process on his second day at the ARC but he had never acquainted himself with the precise processes involved in Connor Temple's handiwork.

Ethan isn't convinced. “Liar,” he says, surprisingly amiable. “They'd never let you loose with something you couldn't operate now, would they?”

“I can't let you go through,” Matt replies.

“You can't let me stay,” Ethan counters. “Who knows what kind of trouble I'd get into with one of these?” He cocks his hip to accentuate the revolver, as if it has been invisible up to this moment. “Hardly a stand-off, though, really. You'd need to be armed for that.”

Matt thinks about chasing Ethan through the graveyard, knowing Emily had been sequestered in one of the crypts. Just as quickly he dismisses the distraction. “Still doesn't change the fact I'm not letting you leave through the anomaly.”

Ethan chuckles. “Oh, Matthew – do you mind if I call you Matthew?” he wonders. “You're very fixated, you know. Who said anything about my leaving through the anomaly? Just tell me how to undo whatever was done to it.” He waves a hand around.

“No.”

Ethan sighs. “So much for this being the easy part.”

He aims the EMD at Matt and fires at him.

o o o o o

In the front passenger seat of the ARC issued 4x4 Stephen's foot tickles. It won't tap, as much as it wants to. The traffic outside is slow to the point of a standstill. The constant hum of noise isn't unbearable, but it's not far off.

In the periphery of his vision Claudia is carefully taping up a shallow gash on her forearm. Emily watches but doesn't offer assistance.

Two people out of time. Three if you count Stephen. Claudia’s appearance at one of the anomalies Cutter had successfully predicted is a puzzle, but not one Stephen has the focus for right now.

He stares at his phone. The text Jess had sent him is still on the screen. _SOS @ other anomaly site_

Next to him Obaid fiddles with his earpiece. “Broken down lorry on an 'A' road,” he announces. “We won't be going anywhere in a hurry.”

“Alternative routes?” Stephen asks.

“Not from here.”

Stephen frowns at the phone. He can't remember the last time he had texted anyone, even before his year out of time. The phone had been one of a handful of things in a box under Hilary's bed, complete with a thin layer of grime to show its disuse. He carefully flips through menus until he finds a reply button and with one thumb painstakingly spells out _stuck in traffic what updates_ to Jess.

Before he can talk himself out of it he sends the same message to Hilary.

o o o o o

It takes less than ten minutes for the team to reconvene in Duchemin's office. Becker's relieved at least some of the civilians are on side this time. The twinge of guilt he feels when Danny and Jenny come back into the office, postures noticeably tenser, is the one that lingers.

“We need to find Ethan,” Becker announces.

Abby frowns. “We sure it's him?”

“Until proven otherwise it's what we go with.”

Abby nods; before she can say anything else the door opens again and Emerson barrels in. “We've heard in from everyone except Brooks and Kelly,” she says without preamble.

It's easy to fill in the gaps. “He's taken Matt to the anomaly,” Becker says. He's already moving for the door. “Abby, Connor, with me -”

“What about us?” Danny asks, he and Jenny easily keeping pace with the others. “And don't brush us off now.”

As if he could. Becker glances back at them. “Emerson, arm them. Keep trying to contact Lester. Check in with Jess. Phone Abby or Connor with pertinent updates.”

One thing at a time, even if the list was growing longer by the second.

o o o o o

Stephen stares out of the car window, past the crawling traffic to a patch of dandelions on a grassy verge. His mind is racing, unable to focus on one thing for more than a few seconds.

He flashes to the reconstruction of the anomaly model. Three intertwined lines wove around four separate fixed points. One of them was the anomaly Christine Johnson had controlled, a rare connection between the present and the destroyed future. 

Another was the one they had just left, that Claudia had come through. Stephen's convinced she's the Claudia he'd left behind in his original timeline, and it's not difficult to work out that her scars and injuries mean she's had a long journey to get here.

Johnson had watched him like a hawk every time their paths had crossed; like she knew something he didn't.

“The anomaly's running on a fault line,” an echo of Nick tells him. 

Claudia had watched in amusement as Becker chased a diictodon around a hospital ward.

The Peugeot in the lane next to them roars and speeds off. Obaid slams his foot on the gas and steers heavily.

What is Stephen missing this time?

o o o o o

Danny looks at the toy gun – sorry, _Electronic Muscular Disruptor_ that an ARC soldier had palmed to him – and it takes him all of ten seconds to awkwardly holster it inside his jacket. Jenny goes one better, requesting a spare thigh holster that she wraps slowly and securely around her trouser leg. She meets Danny's gaze with a wry expression.

_Two handguns with silencers in symmetrical thigh holsters. A shoulder strap modified to hold an anomaly detector. Black combat gear creased sharply enough to make even Becker raise an eyebrow._

_Danny could only nod grimly._

_Jenny Lewis was ready for war._

Danny blinks away the sudden memory. Jenny sweeps her hair up into a messy bun then tilts her head at Danny. “Ready?”

“No. You?”

“Not a chance.”

Danny holds his arms out towards the door. “Once more unto the breach, my dear.”

o o o o o

Ethan debates the merits of leaving the anomaly response team unbound for all of ten seconds before leaving them where they are. He makes sure to pocket the control for the anomaly unlocking technology as well as the communication equipment – can't have anyone talking to anyone else here – and slips up the stairs to the ground floor.

It's time to crash a wedding.

o o o o o

Jess' mobile buzzes in her pocket. She frowns and tries to keep typing with one hand while she tugs it out and waves it vaguely in Lester's direction.

Thankfully he's quick on the uptake. “Yes... Stephen?”

Jess tunes them out for a few moments, at least until Lester nudges her shoulder slightly. “Can we still get around speeding tickets?” he asks quietly, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Jess snorts and nods. On the screens in front of her the multiple CCTV feeds from the stately home are still fragmented but in much better order than they were originally. It looks like Ethan had arrived from an outside location, not the anomaly the team had found and locked down, but that's probably the worse possibility. In another window Jess fires off an internal memo to anyone halfway qualified and still at the ARC to begin a proper search for anywhere Ethan Dobrowski might have been using as a base of operations in the present. At least one ex-soldier on Becker's team used to lead manhunts overseas, and there are a couple of civilians with psychology and profiling experience that she includes in the cc.

Lester ends the call with Stephen and slides the phone into Jess' eyeline. She frowns up at the screens.

“I don't think there's anything else we can do from here,” she says.

“What about re-establishing communications?”

Jess shakes her head. “Too big a risk.”

“Indeed.” Lester's voice is bland, but Jess is pretty sure there's a tinge of disappointment in there somewhere. Maybe.

She lets out a breath and leans away from the screens. 

Whatever's going on out there, the team are on their own for now.

o o o o o

The makeshift team – Danny, Jenny, Connor, Abby, Becker and his lot – fans out quickly and efficiently from Duchemin's office. They make steady progress across the ground floor towards the basement stairs leading to the anomaly. Danny can't shake the heavy feeling that something is going to go spectacularly wrong but he plays his role as Becker's second to the hilt.

It's almost like old times.

It also feels easy. Too easy.

Jenny raises an eyebrow at him, and Danny belatedly realises he'd said the last part out loud. He holds up a hand for a moment. Smirks a little, just for effect. He doesn't feel it.

He is, however, lucky that he and Jen had opted for a small wedding. Venue aside, only about twelve people had made the invitation list, four of those Jenny's parents and step-parents. It would have been the local registry office had it not been for Gerald Lewis' near mournful expression – and the fact that he and Claire Duchemin had gone to university together.

The lack of expected people makes the team's job easier, just the odd member of staff shooed back towards Duchemin's office. None of Jenny's family appear, and Danny has enough time to hope they're safe with the other civilians when a door slams – behind them.

Everyone whips around, guns raised. Becker steps ahead and calls out: “Who's there?”

A door at the end of the corridor opens again, and a man strolls out. He's wearing a badly-fitted tuxedo and carrying an EMD.

Danny's grip tightens on his weapon.

The man smiles mockingly at the group in front of him. “You must be Becker. And all your little friends. Lovely.” He reaches into his jacket; something in Danny contracts at the sight of an anomaly detection device. “Tell me how to use this, only your other little fri-”

“Enough,” Becker interrupts. He takes another step forward. “What do you want?”

“To get out of here,” the man – he has to be Ethan judging by everyone else's reactions – replies, just as mockingly as before. “Obviously. And I'll be taking him with me.”

He unshoulders the EMD and points it at Danny.


	2. Chapter 2

The silence is almost comical.

Becker tightens his grip on the EMD and glances back quickly to make sure everyone is still behind him. “No,” he says when it becomes clear no one else is going to say anything.

Ethan frowns at him. “Don't remember asking, sunshine. Danny Quinn -” he jerks the EMD again, “- comes with me.”

“Why?” It's Jenny. She pushes past the others until she's just behind Becker, level with Danny. She keeps her weapon steady and aimed at Ethan. “Why Danny?”

Becker looks past her. “Danny?”

Danny's face is pale. His mouth is open and his gun is hanging at his side. It takes Becker a second to realise he's staring at Ethan.

“No,” Danny mumbles, sagging a little. “...No.”

“Danny?” Becker asks again.

“How?” Danny asks.

Out of the corner of Becker's eye Ethan moves, just enough for Becker to switch his full attention back to him.

“So you do remember,” Ethan says.

Danny looks utterly lost. “I...”

There's more movement; Stephen appears behind Ethan, moving silently with an EMD in his left hand. Behind Stephen, Becker recognises one of his soldiers, as well as Emily and -

Jenny?

Becker blinks. The split second of hesitation must have been obvious because Ethan whirls around and then back to Danny and the others. “No,” he says, his expression hard.

He tosses the EMD to one side and reaches into his jacket.

“Gun!” Someone behind Becker yells.

Ethan ignores them. Before anyone can react, he moves forward, grabs Jenny into a one armed chokehold and points the revolver to her temple. “Now, where were we?”

Jenny grimaces but Ethan's hold is strong. She jerks her arm free and jabs him sharply. The surprise releases his hold on Jenny. With her EMD on the floor out of easy reach, she puts herself in front of Danny and holds up her fists in a fighting stance.

Ethan re-aims the revolver at her head. “She'll die before anyone can disable me,” he announces, deceptively mildly.

“Not necessarily,” Stephen says. He keeps his gaze fixed on Jenny as he steps forward and presses his EMD to the back of Ethan's head. “Drop the gun.”

“Do it,” Jenny growls – to Stephen, Becker realises. She seems unaware of Danny's weapon, or the others in the room all aimed at Ethan.

“Do it,” Danny echoes hoarsely. 

For the first time Ethan's aim wavers. His expression hardens.

Before he can say anything else, Danny says: “Drop the gun, Patrick.”

What?

Ethan sags, just long enough for Danny to finally push past Jenny. He disarms Ethan with ease – and sweeps him into a tight hug, at the same time pulling him away from Stephen's aim.

Becker tries to think. Patrick?

_“My brother went missing in that house,” Danny says, once the A &E nurse is out of earshot. He's slurring a little, probably from the adrenaline crash as well as the painkillers kicking in. He makes a huffing sound and looks horribly close to crying. “Patrick's dead, should never've...”_

Oh, god.

Beside him, Jenny must have come to the same conclusion. The hostility and anger she was radiating moments ago is gone, and instead she looks exhausted and sad. “Oh, my god,” she whispers. “Danny...”

Danny doesn't react, just holds Ethan – Patrick? – tighter until the other man's arms lower and he suddenly hugs Danny back.

Behind them, Stephen slowly lowers his gun. For half a second Becker thinks he's going to come closer to him but Stephen's gaze doesn't so much as flicker in his direction. Becker has just enough time to berate himself for being a mooning teenager when Danny pulls back from Ethan.

“I waited for you,” Ethan says slowly, looking down at the ground. “You never came.”

Danny closes his eyes. “I didn't know where to look.”

“I waited.”

“I'm sorry,” Danny says hoarsely. “I'm so, so sorry.”

“It's done now,” Ethan says. Something flickers over his face, too quick to identify. He looks up, around at everyone then settles on Becker. “Your people are down by the anomaly. I didn't kill them.” He shrugs loosely.

Becker frowns. Before he can say anything, or even think about what Ethan had just said – and how he said it – Danny squeezes Ethan's shoulder. “Let's go get them,” he says loudly. “Make sure they're all right.”

Stephen glances at Becker. His expression is almost inscrutable but Becker thinks he knows how to read between the lines.

Stephen is wary. He backs away from the rest of the team, back to Emily. “After you,” he tells Ethan and Danny.

Danny hesitates but nods to Ethan. “Come on,” he says softly. He keeps a hand on Ethan's shoulder and they walk down the corridor, towards Stephen and Emily, who start to walk ahead of them.

It doesn't last long. 

The woman behind Stephen – the woman who isn't Emily, Becker realises far too late – tenses up as everyone comes closer to her. This time Becker – and everyone else – gets a much better look at her.

Danny is the first to react. “What the?”

Becker can't help himself. He stares. The woman has short, wildly uneven hair. Her clothes are tattered, possibly military surplus. Her arm is bandaged. And she looks exactly like Jenny Lewis.

But Jenny Lewis... Becker turns to look behind him. Jenny Lewis is standing two feet behind him, still in the same clean, sensible clothes she's been wearing for the last few hours. Jenny Lewis is also staring at the other woman like she has two heads.

As is everyone else. Even Ethan looks perplexed.

Jenny pushes forward, so she and the other woman are sort of face to face. Now just a few feet apart, the similarities are even more obvious.

“Who...” Jenny makes a soft huffing sound. “Oh, my... You're her, aren't you.”

Realisation hits Becker like a blow to the chest. “You're Claudia Brown,” he says.

Claudia lifts her head slightly. If she was anyone else, Becker would think she was scared, but she just stares Jenny down and asks: “Who are you?”

Whatever Jenny had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that.

“I... Jenny. Jenny Lewis.”

“Great, more long-lost family.” Ethan pulls away from Danny, just enough to put some distance between himself and the others. “Do you want your people back or not?”

That breaks the spell.

“This is unreal,” Becker hears Connor mutter as Abby shushes him. Nobody else seems to have heard him, but Stephen steps back into the fray anyway. “Eth – he's right,” he tells Jenny quietly. “Matt and the others first.”

“And the anomaly,” Jenny says quietly, finally looking away from Claudia. “Yeah. Yes.”

The sort-of convoy resumes but with a lot more tension. Ethan darts looks back at everyone behind him and looks increasingly uncomfortable. It doesn't seem to matter though; he leads everyone to a door at the end of another corridor and down a set of surprisingly cold stairs.

As the surprisingly spacious basement comes into view the first thing Becker sees is the sealed anomaly. The light refractions are muted but distinct -

\- and there are bodies on the floor. Becker slips past everyone else and goes to check. Brooks and Kelly – the two missing from the check-in – are unconscious but their pulses are steady. Matt's closer to the anomaly, at an unnatural angle on his back and his head is hanging awkwardly to one side, but again his pulse is steady and he's breathing evenly.

“What did you do to them?” Becker asks, still crouched down beside Matt.

Ethan waves in the direction of Becker's EMD.

Right. “They won't wake up for a while,” Becker says, but it's pretty redundant as those kinds of things go. They're obviously out for the count, but they're going to be all right. That's the important thing.

A real motley crew is gathering down here; Danny and Ethan, Jenny, Claudia and Stephen, and Connor and Abby as well as the couple of soldiers instinctively maintaining a perimeter in the background. Everyone seems to be drifting towards the anomaly, even Danny and Jenny. Becker doesn't think anyone's aware of it, but from his vantage point he can see it.

Ethan, though... Ethan is moving backwards, slowly putting distance between him and Danny, and by proxy everyone else. His eyes dart around, taking in the anomaly locking device, and for a long moment he meets Becker's gaze.

Becker tenses. He starts reaching for his weapon but Ethan is quicker. He jabs an elbow into the soldier behind him and grabs her EMD. He fires it at the anomaly locking device; sparks fly and something pops loudly – a split second later the anomaly surges and unfurls itself. Instinctively everyone jumps back, away from the exploding device and the anomaly itself.

Ethan's face morphs into something comical, but he grabs Danny by the arm. Danny pulls back, but Ethan twists around and uses Danny's movement to send him flying through the anomaly. He then dives through afterwards.

For a split second everyone stands still in shock.

“No,” Jenny mutters. She strides forward as if to go through the anomaly herself but she's stopped. Stephen – and Claudia, Becker has a moment to wonder dumbly why she's there. They both grab onto her.

“No!” Jenny wrenches herself free and whirls around to face them. To face Stephen. She jabs a finger right at his face. “Don't you bloody dare. After – after everything!”

“Jenny -”

“Don't,” Jenny says coldly. “I'm supposed to be getting married today. _We_ are...” She looks around the room. “You're going to have to shoot me,” she announces, and holds her hand out to Connor and Abby.

It's Abby who steps forward and gives her another EMD. “You don't know what's on the other side,” she says softly.

“Danny,” Jenny says, her voice ragged. “Danny's on the other side.”

She turns and without looking back walks straight through the anomaly.

Abby makes a choking sound. “Come on,” she says. “Come on!”

Becker gives Matt's unconscious form one last look. Tamps down the feeling of total nausea as he remembers the guidelines – the guidelines he'd helped draft, all those months ago. “Obaid,” he announces. “Find someone with mobile reception and get hold of the ARC.”

“Sir?”

_No expeditions._

Becker climbs to his feet and looks around at the others. “You're going to need backup for Matt and the civilians upstairs.”

Abby looks furious. “Becker!”

“Phone Jess and tell her to keep the comms offline until I say otherwise,” Becker adds.

_No search parties_

He glances over at Stephen, who inclines his head slightly. Then at Connor and Abby, and Emily and Claudia.

_No rescue._

He's made worse decisions before.

“We're going on a rescue mission.”


	3. Chapter 3

On the other side of the anomaly cold air hits Becker in a single solid wave. He tightens his grip on his EMD and, not for the first time since the anomaly project restarted, wishes he had his Mossberg.

He examines his surroundings. He's in what looks like a quarry, with a high, sharp cliff closing off a decent sized space of flattish ground. It's maybe the size of a football field.

He glances back as the others slowly emerge from the anomaly. Stephen, Connor and Abby immediately fan out, but they're met with the same indistinct yellowish-brown stone that Becker was.

They're in a _pit_ , Becker realises. There's a wall a few metres behind the anomaly that completes the cliff perimeter. Behind him Stephen pivots slowly, his EMD aimed at the tops of the cliffs. And behind Stephen, Claudia and Emily are unarmed but still cautious.

Becker turns back around and walks further out into the pit. There are no access points, no obvious means of climbing up the walls – and no sign of Danny, Jenny or Ethan.

He's stopped from going any further by a hand on his arm. Stephen gives him a warning look, then steps ahead of Becker. Dimly he realises Stephen is looking for tracks.

“Anything?” Becker asks quietly.

Stephen considers the ground. “I've got one pair of shoes running in that direction,” he says, pointing to patches of scuffed dirt.

Becker follows the invisible line. It doesn't lead to anything he can see.

“Another anomaly,” Emily says, coming up alongside Stephen.

“Has to have been,” Connor calls out. “There's literally nothing else here.”

That's one hell of a coincidence, and one Becker doesn't like at all. “Could they have gone up at all?” he asks no one in particular.

To perhaps everyone's surprise it's Claudia who walks over and puts her good hand against the wall. “No,” she says. 

Becker tries not to react to Jenny's voice, hoarse as it is.

“Not without help,” Claudia adds.

Becker immediately dismisses the possibility as an option. Ethan hadn't come through this anomaly, which means he couldn't have known what would be on this side of it.

It means he was improvising everything that came up to, and after, finding Danny, and that scares Becker a little. People who wing it are infinitely harder to predict. And at no point had anyone even remotely considered a connection between Ethan Dobrowski and Patrick Quinn. Let alone that they could be the same person.

“Well, there's definitely nothing here now,” Connor says. He waves an anomaly detector around for emphasis. “Aside from the anomaly we just came through, I mean.”

Behind them the original anomaly flickers and pulses but it stays open. Becker looks around the floor of the pit again. At the tracks Stephen had pointed out. “It's no good if we can't follow them.”

Connor looks dejected. “No. I guess not.” Then he brightened up a little. “Unless we could.”

“What do you mean?” Emily asked from the far edge of the pit. 

“Stephen,” Connor says quickly. He jabs a finger at him for emphasis. “Stephen brought back an anomaly remote, didn't he?”

“Like the one we used to get back,” Abby says, nodding. “Ours burned out.”

“Mine too,” Claudia adds.

Everyone turns to Stephen. “Not mine – I don't think so.”

“You don't know?” Connor frowns.

Stephen inclines his head. “It worked when I last had it. I don't have it now.”

“So it's back at the ARC somewhere.” Connor doesn't seem bothered dealing with people who don't use as many words as he does. In fact, he's starting to look excited. “And if it's back at the ARC somewhere, we can find it. And when we find it -”

Becker finally catches on. “We can come back and re-open the anomaly Danny, Jenny and Ethan went through.”

Connor jumps up and down a couple of times. “Yes!”

“That's going to take time, though,” Abby says.

Connor grins at her. “Quicker than waiting for it to open on its own. Come on!” He motions back to the open anomaly. “Before this one closes, guys!”

Abby hesitates then nods. “But we come back,” she says firmly, looking around at everyone. “We come back for them.”

Connor's the only one who nods in response, but no one disagrees.

o o o o o

Jenny runs through the second anomaly and swelters. The sudden dry heat almost knocks her flat after the cool of the basement and the chill of the quarry. She stumbles on uneven ground – she looks down, she's on dirt and grass and there's a slope and going up behind the anomaly – and tries to get her bearings.

Her first thought is she's been in forests like this before. Before time travel became an occupational hazard, she'd assumed that one forest was like another. 

Now, though, she tries to take stock. The trees look normal. Something out of an Attenborough documentary rather than one of Connor's Powerpoint shows. The air is breathable – for now.

There. Movement.

Jenny shields her eyes, tries to make out the figures.

Then she double-checks her EMD is still in its holster and makes her way up the hill.

o o o o o

“So,” Abby begins, “where's the most likely place the remote is going to be?”

They're in the car park of the stately home. Becker has squashed the uneasy feeling about passing by the still unconscious Matt and the two soldiers, and for sneaking past the office where they'd left Danny and Jenny's wedding guests. And he's not the only one suddenly uncomfortable, it seems. Everyone has congregated around the 4x4 farthest away from the car park's CCTV cameras and are speaking in hushed tones.

He also belatedly realises everyone is waiting for him to answer. “I don't know,” he admits. “I was kept out of the loop on a lot of the details after Stephen came back.”

Connor looks unperturbed. “What about when Abby and I came back? What happened to our stuff then?”

Becker thinks. “Some of it was passed to the labs for examination. Burton took the tech.”

“Burton?” It's Claudia. Everyone turns to look at her. “Philip Burton?”

“Yes,” Stephen says quietly. He doesn't look at Claudia; he doesn't look at anyone.

For the first time today, Becker looks at Claudia – really looks at her, not just Jenny's face and the matted hair and the worn and dirtied clothes. For the first time he wonders if this is the Claudia Stephen left behind, in his original time line.

And if she is, then what has happened to her between then and now?

It's yet another interesting twist in a day that's been full of them, and Claudia's not the first person to react to the mention of Philip Burton.

_“Wait until you meet Burton.”_

_Becker thinks he was aiming for light-hearted, but Stephen hesitates. The tiniest twitch at the corner of Stephen's mouth, and his left eyebrow barely dimples._

_It's glaringly obvious if you know what to look for. Becker remembers the signs better than he ever thought he might, no mean feat considering that when he woke up that morning he thought Stephen was dead._

It's also something else they'll have to deal with later. Becker squashes the fresh wave of doubt and uncertainty in his gut and says: “We need to stay on task. Assuming Burton has the anomaly remote, where would he have stored it?”

Connor pulls a face. “Dunno about storage, something like that he'd want to examine it, try to reverse engineer it, even.”

“He hasn't given it to you?” Abby asks, frowning.

Connor looks puzzled for a moment but shakes his head. “It has to be in one of his labs. They're separate to everything else, not many people have access to them.”

“I do,” Becker says. It's one of the few things he refused to back down on during the early days of the new ARC being set up; he and a handful of people retained their unfettered access to the entirety of the facility.

Connor drums his hands on the side of the 4x4. It's not loud but the sound startles both Stephen and Claudia. “Come on! To the ARC!”

Becker glances at Claudia again. Even if he could think of anything to say, it's too late to back out now.

o o o o o

For what is supposed to be a bustling, albeit top secret, facility on continuous security alert, the ARC is very quiet. Lester is rankled on principle. He lasts all of ten minutes hovering at Jess' workstation once the flurry of field activity died down again, and Burton has yet to reappear, assuming the ministerial meetings from that morning have actually concluded.

No word of a lie, Burton's absence is the thing Lester likes the most about today's developments so far.

He retires to his office; much as with his arrival earlier his efforts at nonchalance go unappreciated. It would almost be disappointing if not for everything else happening. 

Ah, well. Lester takes the mental hint and steps back outside. He glances one way down the hub then back towards Jess and her many computer screens. He's about to say something, perhaps something about his employees present and past running around, when one of those screens flickers into life.

Jess startles, focuses her attention on it. “Lester?” she calls out loudly. “Oh!”

“Sorry,” he says. He's right behind her now. “What is it?”

She points up at the far corner of a monitor. A 4x4 with ARC-issued license plates rolls into view and then out of the bottom of the frame.

Lester offers Jess a quizzical glance.

“That's the vehicle Becker's team took earlier,” she explains, then frowns. “The anomaly's still active; nobody notified me they were coming back.”

The unspoken _I don't like this_ echoes, and Lester can only agree with the sentiment. More fortunately it also offers him an opportunity to involve himself properly in this increasingly interesting day.

“I'll go and find out why,” he tells her. He nods, decisively, to add to the illusion he either has any idea of what's going on or that he's actually in charge of anything any more.

Jess flashes him a quick grin then turns back to her workstation.

Down at the internal exit to the car park, whatever Lester had been expecting when the lift doors slid open, it wasn't the sight of half a dozen supposed professionals ducking behind a Ford Transit van.

First the black boxes, now... this. He walks over towards the van and sighs loudly. “You do realise the cameras aren't actually pointed in your direction.”

Someone lets out an ungainly yelp, followed quickly by the sound of someone stumbling.

Lester allows himself the tiniest fleeting smirk. Then something else occurs to him. “Not that it matters, of course. The bio-tags won't allow for whatever subterfuge you might have been thinking about.”

Becker, now the closest of this motley lot to Lester, lets out a loud breath and his shoulders sag. “Come on,” he mutters over his shoulder.

Stephen slowly emerges from behind the van, followed closely by Abby, Connor, Emily and Jenny.

Lester desperately tries to remember the quip about hiring policies he'd nearly used earlier, but something in Jenny's expression makes him pause.

“She's not Jenny,” Stephen says.

“Claudia Brown, then.” Lester inclines his head slightly, hoping his shock isn't showing. “I presume?”

The woman nods slowly.

“Now the sneaking around makes sense,” Lester continues, as blithely as he can manage. “Come with me.”

He turns back to the lift. “Yes, all of you.”

“But -” It's Connor this time.

Lester sighs again. “I know rather a lot's been happening today. I also know that this -” he waves a hand at the concreted, vehicle-filled privacy nightmare around them, “- is not the place to do anything about any of it. Whoever you're trying to hide from, for whatever conceivable reason, Miss Parker and I should be the very last people on that list.”

Suitably chastened, the team troop past him and file into the lift. Lester mentally pats himself on the back, and too late realises that the lift was not designed to take quite this many people in one journey. 

Fortunately he's not the only one. The short trip upstairs is taken with flattened shoulders and sucked-in stomachs, and in complete silence. 

As soon as the lift stops someone reaches behind Lester's back to stop the doors from opening.

Lester sighs. “Two things. One, we _are all on the same side_ ,” he says with as much emphasis as he can muster at short notice. “Two, the same person who can hide your bio-tag data can also _hide the camera footage_.”

“Oh yeah,” Connor says. 

It takes every scrap of self-control Lester possesses to not bury his face in his hands and cry. Instead he leads his motley crew of supposed professionals through the ARC. After a couple of turns, Stephen nudges his elbow and indicates a different corridor.

They end up in Stephen's lab. Lester tries not to gawk, and again he's not the only one. Half of the room is taken up with a near carbon copy of Cutter's anomaly model, and across the far wall is a makeshift paper montage of the same model. Dotted around its edges are dozens of differently coloured post-it notes covered in tiny handwriting. Claudia and Connor peer at a few of them, and Abby looks briefly emotional before closing herself off.

“So,” Lester says eventually, when it becomes clear no one else will say anything. “What are you all doing here?”

“We need the anomaly remote,” Becker replies. “The one Stephen brought back with him. We think we can use it to track Danny and Jenny.”

Lester raises his eyebrows. “Elaborate.”

Becker does, using less than five sentences where most would exceed five paragraphs. Lester has never appreciated that more than now.

“It should be in Burton's laboratory,” he confirms. “Who is neither here nor supposed to be for the rest of the day. Are you sure it will do what you want it to?”

Connor nods. “We're not completely sure, but we still need to try.”

Lester nods. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls Jess. She answers on the second ring.

“Hypothetically, Jess,” he says slowly as everyone turns to watch him, “how long would it take your computers to reboot if the ARC's internal surveillance systems were to suddenly crash?”

_“That's not how it works, and you know it,”_ she replies cheerfully, _“but... ten minutes, maybe fifteen if the servers are slow for any reason?”_

“Ten minutes,” Lester repeats. He glances at Becker, who pauses then nods. “I do appreciate how resourceful you can be, have I ever told you that?”

_“Not that I can recall, but I'll be happy to remind you about this conversation.”_ Jess sounds distracted now. _“Oh, look. Computer issues. You know how it is.”_

“I do.” Lester hangs up and pockets the phone. He looks over at Becker again, who is closest to the door. “There's a security camera on the other side of the corridor. You should be able to see it from in here. Check and see if there's a green light visible, would you?”

Becker angles himself against the door and squints a little. “Yep, I can see it,” he says.

“Once it disappears you'll have ten minutes to find the lab and remote and get out of the ARC,” Lester says. “Maybe fifteen, but that's not a safe margin.”

“We can do ten,” Abby says quietly.

Of that, Lester has no doubt. Mostly because they have no choice, and for all that they seem frighteningly incompetent most of the time, the ARC teams have a well-versed history of fighting difficult odds.

It might just be why he's remained so attached to them after all this time.

“What about the black boxes?” Connor asks.

“I believe Matt asked for them to be switched off,” Lester replies. “I see no reason to countermand that right now.”

“Light's off,” Becker reports. He quickly opens the door.

“Good luck,” Lester murmurs.

Stephen's the last one out of the door. He hesitates and looks back at Lester. “I – thank you.”

“We'll talk about this later,” Lester says. “Go!”

Stephen nods, but goes.


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, it's all rather simple. Given everything that's happened already today, Becker supposes it can only be a good thing.

Connor identifies which laboratory the anomaly remote is most likely to be in. “There's a list,” he explains in a fire escape staircase, “but they're all close together.”

There's no talk of splitting up, mostly because Becker's the only one who can access any of the labs, and even Jess can only make so much incriminating data disappear without suspicion.

There's also no talk of how the searches are going to be conducted. Stephen, Abby and Connor slip in through the first door that Becker unlocks. Emily, who based on her debriefs probably doesn't know what the remote looks like, waits outside with Becker, who doesn't see the point in overcrowding an already small search radius.

Claudia waits outside too.

She presses herself up against the wall opposite Becker, arms wrapped around her chest. She doesn't make eye contact and stays perfectly still. It reminds Becker of how Stephen had been on his first couple of nights back – unless he had been specifically doing something, he had been silent and motionless. 

So Claudia has been alone, maybe as long as Stephen. Maybe longer.

“How is your arm?” Emily asks quietly.

The slight incline of Claudia's head is the only response.

Becker tries to hide the fact that he's staring. This woman has Jenny Lewis' face and voice (or the other way around, according to Stephen and Cutter), but they're completely different people. The handful of times Stephen has opened up about his old life, Claudia was mentioned but rarely in depth. Becker wants to know who she is. What makes her tick.

What had happened between Stephen leaving that timeline and Claudia arriving in this one.

The door opening beside him makes all three of them jump. Connor emerges first. “Got it,” he announces, holding the remote up in his hand.

Becker checks his watch. “Seven and a half minutes.”

They waste no time getting back to the car park.

o o o o o

Matt comes to slowly.

His head throbs and there’s a burning sensation in his lower back. Ethan Dobrowski’s revolver flashes in his memory and he winces.

Something pushes gently against his shoulder.

Instinctively Matt jerks away. He rolls over. Tries to reach for a weapon but a pain in his arm stops him.

“Sir?” someone says.

More of the world comes into focus. He’s surrounded by concrete.

And the enemy isn’t a predator.

Matt rubs his eyes. Looks up. A woman in a black uniform looks down at him.

“How are you feeling?” she asks him.

Matt groans.

He forces himself to breathe and lets his head rest on the ground. “What happened?”

o o o o o

Jenny crests the hill. As she gulps down long breaths she looks around her. Part of her had hoped that by now she'd have caught up with Danny and Ethan – Patrick – by now. Or that Danny had got away somehow. Or the new ARC team had...

A lot of things have gone through her mind the last few – she checks her watch – _two hours_ since she'd last seen a clock at the wedding venue. Everything from Disney quality saccharine to the kind of death and destruction she and Danny had tried to leave behind them. _With Becker_ a traitorous voice reminds her but she squashes that down.

But all Jenny can think to herself is that whatever she'd thought might happen when she walked through the anomaly... it wasn't this.

It wasn't anything like this.

Her knee twinges, and she half-falls, half-sits on the dry grass and runs a hand over her hair.

She doesn't cry, but it's a damn close thing.

o o o o o

Becker makes it back to the stately home in what feels like a blur. He parks in the same spot where they had started from. The only difference as they all climb out is Matt striding across the car park to meet them, carrying another EMD.

Becker braces himself. He's heard Matt give dressings down before, been on the receiving end of two.

Matt stops a few metres from the car and watches everyone get out. He doesn't react to either Stephen or Claudia, but he hesitates briefly when he sees Emily.

“I spoke to Lester,” Matt tells them. “We'd better get going.”

Becker's already lost count of how many punches he's rolled with today; he simply nods and everyone troops back inside and down to the basement. Emerson and Kelly are guarding the resealed anomaly.

“Sir,” Emerson nods. She unlocks the anomaly and stands back.

Connor goes through first, followed quickly by Stephen and Abby. Becker waits to bring up the rear; by the time he's in the cool stone pit again, Connor's standing just ahead of everyone else, remote held up in front of him. He frowns and pokes the glass part of it a couple of times.

Then the anomaly bursts open. It pulses brightly for a couple of seconds then settles down.

“It worked!” Connor breathes. He taps the remote again, and then hands it to Becker. “It'll be safer with you.”

Becker secures the remote, then considers the second anomaly. This is new territory now, for all of them. 

“Let's go,” he announces.

“Stephen, Abby, with me,” Matt directs. Emily raises her hand to get Claudia's attention; they quickly follow through the anomaly.

“Ready?” Becker asks Connor.

He looks about as nervous as Becker feels, and nods grimly. Together they step through.

The rest of the team are already spread out. Becker quickly takes stock. They're on a grassy slope underneath a cloudless sky. Trees line the upward incline while behind them – and the anomaly – the grass thins out to stone and dirt.

There's a cliff edge barely ten metres away. Stephen stands at the edge of it and looks down. There's a flicker of shock on his face and Becker jogs over to him.

“What is it?” he asks.

Stephen aims his EMD downwards. Becker follows the line. The cliff drops into a round stone pit – with two anomalies sparkling at the bottom of it.

Stephen's gaze meets Becker's. 

“Guys!” Connor's yell startles both of them and they look over to see him waving his arms. “Emily's found some tracks.”

Jenny. Danny. Shit.

Becker touches Stephen's elbow lightly. “Come on.”

Stephen gives the pit one last inscrutable look then breaks into a run for the rest of the group. Becker focuses on his surroundings but can't see or hear anything that isn't the seven of them. Stephen and Emily are quick, from what Becker can tell, taking a steady uphill path through the trees. Overhead the sunlight dims slowly.

Wherever – whenever – they are, Becker's pretty sure he doesn't want to be around after dark.

They've been moving for about ten minutes when the trees give way to a clearing – and a figure, hunched over in the distance. 

It's impossible to tell who it is from this distance. Becker, Matt and Abby raise their EMDs on reflex, and it's Stephen who slips ahead of the pack again. He holds up a hand to the others, signalling it's safe.

It's downright gloomy now and in the shadows Becker can just make out dark hair swept into a bun. He drops his weapon.

“Jenny?” Abby approaches her wide and slow, like she would an injured animal. “Jenny, are you all right?”

Jenny looks up at Abby, then twists round to look at everyone else. She makes a choking sound. “Did you see them?” she asks quietly.

Abby drops into a crouch just off to Jenny's side. “See who? Danny and Ethan? I -”

“No,” Jenny says. She points down the hill ahead of her. “Them.”

Becker squints into the twilight. There are pockets of light in the distance, small and -

No. Not lights.

His stomach sinks.

“Anomalies,” he says faintly.

“Dozens,” Jenny says. “They come and go. I – I...”

Abby hesitates, then reaches out to put a hand on Jenny's shoulder.

Connor sidles over to Becker. “Spaghetti Junction,” he breathes.

Becker nods. He remembers the name Connor had given the phenomenon before, when Helen Cutter had tricked her way through to the site to escape Captain Ryan's custody.

“D'you think it's the same one?” Connor asks quietly. He wraps his arms around himself as he tries to count the different anomalies. “Site, I mean.”

“It is,” Stephen says quietly, coming up to Becker's other side.

“Same one you've seen or same one we did?” Connor asks.

“Both.”

Connor nods.

“We can't stay here,” Matt says, breaking the quiet spell. He moves back towards Jenny. “I'm sorry, but we can't.”

“I know,” Jenny says quietly. She lets Abby help her to her feet.

“Danny'll be all right,” Abby tells her.

“He's been looking for Patrick his whole life,” Jenny says quietly. “He has to be all right... thank you for coming.”

“Wouldn't leave you anywhere,” Abby replies quietly. “Come on.” She wraps an arm around Jenny's waist and at the same time unholsters her EMD and flicks the guide light on. She gently leads Jenny back towards the trees.

Becker and Stephen watch them go. Becker can't help looking down at the anomaly cluster again. It should be a let-down, after everything they've done to get here only for Danny – and Ethan – to have disappeared without trace.

Forget the last couple of hours. It's been one hell of a day.

“We're going to need a plan, aren't we,” Connor says suddenly. “To come back and find Danny – that's what we're going to do, right?”

“Not right now,” Matt replies. “We need to leave before it gets completely dark.”

“I – yeah.” Connor doesn't sound convinced, but he lets Matt guide him and Emily back towards the trees.

That leaves Becker and Stephen – and Claudia. Becker turns on his guide light and finds Claudia's legs. She's not too far away, still facing the cluster. 

Becker telegraphs his approach but quickly realises he has no idea what to say to her.

She saves him the bother. “What now?” Jenny's voice asks him.

Becker doesn't know. “Regroup,” he says to his own surprise. He should tell Claudia that she'll be safer if she stays with them, that she should come back with them but he knows that's not his place – and not just because she shouldn't even exist. She does exist, but Becker doesn't know her, doesn't have any sway over what she believes or thinks or does.

Behind him Stephen stays silent. Becker's not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Again Claudia takes the decision. In the light from the EMD her legs turn to face Becker. “Let's go.”

They go. Becker technically leads the way, but it's Stephen's ability to re-navigate terrain that keeps the pace up. Claudia doesn't seem bothered by the lack of light, though she stays close enough to be able to see where she's going as well.

Connor closes both anomalies behind them as they go.

In the basement's harsh overhead lighting Jenny looks as though she's aged forty years. “I need – I have to talk to my parents,” she mutters.

“D'you want one of us to come with you?” Abby asks.

Jenny shakes her head hurriedly. “Won't help. I don't even know what to -”

“Say he's been taken to hospital,” Matt suggests. “Are his parents here?”

Jenny looks at him. “What? No. Hospital, though. That works.” 

She takes several long breaths, hands the EMD and holster to Matt and goes up the stairs.

After a few awkward seconds Connor breaks the silence. “Seriously, guys, what do we do now?”

Becker glances at Emerson and Kelly. They take the silent hint and pack up the anomaly locking equipment, then make their own exit upstairs.

“Do we go back to the ARC?” Abby wonders.

“No,” Becker says. After all the rules – his rules – they've broken today, not to mention Claudia Brown, the ARC doesn't feel like a very safe place right now. Even with Jess and Lester looking out for them.

“Becker's right,” Matt says. “We need to re-establish communication, though.”

He looks at Claudia. “I don't want to tell you what to do, but it's probably best you come with us for now.”

Claudia considers him carefully.

“At the very least you can get cleaned up properly, eat and then figure out what you want to do next.”

Claudia inclines her head.

Matt nods and pulls out his phone. “Jess? It's Matt. I'm fine... long story. Turn the black boxes back on, please.”

_“Finally,”_ Jess says in Becker's ear.

“We're done for the day,” Matt says, pocketing his phone. “Anomaly's closed.”

_“Lovely and convenient,”_ Jess comments.

“Think we're going to decamp somewhere,” Matt continues.

“My place is closer,” Becker says instinctively.

_“Mine's bigger,”_ Jess counters. _“See you all there?”_

Matt looks around. No one disagrees. “Your place,” he says.

_“Brilliant. I'll bring Lester,”_ Jess adds. _“I keep telling him he needs to get out more.”_

With that, she signs off.

Upstairs there's still sunlight streaming through the high windows. It's disconcerting. Becker packs the EMDs away in the boot of the 4x4 and tries not to react when he hears the discussion unfolding behind him. 

When he turns around Jenny is at the far side of the car park, gesturing to someone Becker is pretty sure must be either her father or stepfather. It doesn't look heated enough to be an argument but it doesn't look pleasant either. After a couple of minutes of back and forth, Jenny holds up her hands and takes a few steps backwards. Then she turns around. When she sees the team her posture relaxes a fraction and she comes over to join them.

“Whatever you've got planned, tell me alcohol is involved,” she announces when she gets close enough.

Abby nods. 

Stephen nudges Becker's shoulder slightly and tilts his head to the other ARC vehicles in the car park. Becker nods in understanding. “We'll need another car. Emily, you want to come with us?”

He looks directly at Claudia as he speaks, to make sure there's no misunderstanding. Jess has done a lot for them today and Becker doesn't want to be the one who finds her limit.

Emily glances at Claudia, then nods at Becker. “I'm ready when you are,” she says. It's for the benefit of the black boxes but it's still awkward.

Becker's under no illusions. As difficult and long as today as been, he knows things are only just beginning.


End file.
